


What Doesn't Need a Shadow

by paradiamond



Category: The Rook (TV 2019)
Genre: His Dark Materials AU, Myfanwy POV, Other, They never left, basically myfanwy tries to get gestalt back, post-Season 1, probably shouldn’t have worried about it though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 16:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20567465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: Myfanwy solves the puzzle of Gestalt’s daemon.





	What Doesn't Need a Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> me: do I really want to write this like Gestalt is like a goblin riddle master in a maze testing new Myfanwy to see if she’s worthy of them?  
also me: yeah

The first thing Myfanwy saw when she opened her eyes was water. The second was a bird, shining and soaked, that she immediately recognized as herself. The third was the bodies. 

She and the starling, her daemon, identified as ‘Sensem’ by the note in her pocket, fled, hid, then returned to their old life. Sensem spent that terrible week hiding in her pocket or in the cook of her shoulder, trying not to give them away. Now that everything was out in the open, he was more free with his movements, more expressive, and so was she. 

Sensem flickered over to the edge of the desk, hopping the last few inches. His markings were subtle white spots over a blue grey metallic shine on black feathers. Small, sharp eyes that followed the movements in the hallway. A good daemon for a nervous, mousy woman that no longer really existed. A great daemon for her now, free as anything. 

Myfanwy flipped a page, still getting caught up. Ever since she’d decided to stay the job had become more complicated since she was now taking it seriously, and there a lot she still didn’t know. Boundaries and limitations. Processes. And mountains of data on EVAs and their daemons. 

As a group, EVA daemons were mostly birds, mostly quiet, and mostly secretive. But not all bird daemons belonged to EVAs. It was just one of many potential indicators. A few of them were incorporated into the ability of the EVA, like the man in Russia who controlled other people’s daemons through the touch of his own, a wicked looking owl. Strange. 

“Gestalt coming,” Sensem said, and she bit back a smile. Before, he would have told her which one. Now, they’d both realized it didn’t matter. 

“Thank you,” she said under her breath as Robert walked in, their snake ‘daemon’ hanging around their neck as always. She snapped the file closed and smiled. “Hi.” 

They offered her a small smile in return. “Hi. Do you have a minute?” 

“Of course,” she said, and they closed the door. Through the wall, Ingrid raised an eyebrow at her, and she looked away, trying not to blush as Sensem hopped back to his perch near her computer, keeping away from the snake. 

Gestalt had four different ‘daemons’, one for each body, only one of which was real. The other three were fake, just part of the charade. Trained animals, all small, all traditionally private and non-verbal. The old Myfanwy probably knew which was which, but she didn’t, not anymore. So the snake might just be a snake. 

Robert got comfortable, but always looked stiff. The snake didn’t help. “Have you gotten the chance to review the report?” 

Myfanwy nodded, trying not to get distracted by the goose that flew by in the hall. Probably a guest. “Yes. Well done.” 

The corner of Robert’s mouth quirked up, just a bit. “Thank you.” 

No one did grace like Gestalt. Even now, as awkward as things had become between them what with Myfanwy lying to them, then trying to reconnect, then running away, then coming back. They were always polite. In the aftermath of the auction and attack, they’d been in limbo, Gestalt telling her that they’d miss her notwithstanding. She’d miss them too, more than anything else is this strange life, and she still didn’t know what to do next. 

They ran through the particulars of the mission, which she’d taken to thinking of as ‘operation find Linda’, in an abject state of total professionalism. It was awful. Only Sensem betrayed her agitation, moving from the desk to the lamp and then disappearing behind her, probably to sit in the window. 

“A lot of those records were lost,” Robert said, about something she mostly missed. “But I’ll be down in the records room later if you care to join.” 

The last time they’d met in the records room, Teddy and Alex had found her there, nearly kissed her, then fussed at her for getting involved with a man they’d thought she’d left behind. It was simpler, but worse, then. 

“Sure.” 

Robert nodded, but didn’t move, still watching her, one hand curled under their chin. At their neck, the snake was ducking inside the hem of their tailored sweater, then back up, lingering near their ear. 

Whispering to them? Or just trained to make it look like it? She couldn’t tell. Behind her, Sensem was tapping away at the window, and in the reflection in the glass wall, she could just make out a black bird on the other side, tapping back. Around the Cheque, there were more birds than she ever saw anywhere else. Some of them spies. 

She refocused on Robert, who was still watching her with no expression at all. “See you then?” 

“If you’d like,” Robert said. Then they were gone. 

*

“Gestalt?” 

“Here.” 

Myfanwy followed Eliza’s voice back into the shelves, Sensem perched on her shoulder and peeking out of the curtain of her hair. When she turned the corner, Eliza looked up and smiled, the polished wings on their beetle daemon flashing in the light as they moved. 

Like all bug daemons, it was very still, almost like a decoration. Could an insect be trained to do that? Myfanwy didn’t know. She had seen Eliza take the little thing and put it in their pocket, or up in a hat, but was it always the same one? Maybe they went through hundreds of bugs and the outside world never even knew the difference. She looked away. 

“What are we looking for?” Sensem hopped down and into one of the selves. She frowned at him. “Don’t get stuck in there.” 

Sensem shot her a dry look. “Please.” 

Eliza chuckled. “He speaks.” 

“Rarely,” Myfanwy said, enjoying their accord. It came and went, lately, though she comforted herself in the knowledge that she had to let them go, just a bit, to get them back at all. If she’d jumped right back into their arms under false pretenses, they never would have forgiven her. “How’s, uh-” She could never remember the names. Gestalt never talked about any of the daemons. 

Eliza glanced down at the beetle. “Fine. We’re looking for the raw data on the Rosewood incident.” 

“The one with the sentient trees?”

They nodded. “Exactly.” 

“Got it,” she said, still distracted by her inability to recall the names of all the daemons. Had she ever been told them? Surely they must be in the files. One was Kronos. The snake was something like Pegasus. Or Asmodeus? The problem was that one of them was real, and she should know their name. She should know which one it was. 

Together they rifled through the stacks of paper, pulling the relevant pages. Eliza’s easy grace was evident even here, doing this menial task. Insects had that too, sometimes. There was certainly something stately about that beetle, all still and remote. But the snake was the same way. Poised to strike. Deceptively beautiful. Myfanwy reached up and collected Sensem, bringing him back to her shoulder. 

“What’s wrong?”

Myfanwy blinked. “What?” 

Eliza nodded at the starling. “You reach for him when you’re stressed, keep him close. What’s wrong?” 

Normally, she would just make something up. Evade. But she’d been making an effort not to lie to Gestalt, not anymore. 

“Most of the time it doesn't bother me, not having my memory.” 

A line appeared between Eliza’s eyebrows, then promptly smoothed out. No reaction from the beetle. “Yes?” 

She bit her lip, then let it go. “I don’t remember your daemon’s name. Or even which one is your real daemon. It bothers me, because I feel like I should.” 

Eliza stared at her in silence for what felt like a long time. “Well, what do you think?”

Myfanwy frowned. “Did I-”

“We told you last time, when we were children.” 

But they weren’t children anymore, and the old Myfanwy was ready to throw those memories away. She sighed. “Alright.” 

A hand landed on her shoulder, carefully avoided her daemon and the taboo that went along with it. She jumped and Eliza was suddenly right there, in front of her. All soft eyes with sharp centers. “It is alright. I asked you what you think, though.” 

Her eyes were so deep and wide. Vast. Myfanwy said the first thing that came to mind. “I want to say that...it’s none of them.” 

The corner of their mouth twitched. Probably not right, then. “Why?” 

“Because…it just seems like you wouldn’t want to associate your daemon with any single body, not when it’s the entirety of you.”

“Well one has to be real,” Eliza said, smirking. “Unless you’re suggesting that we don’t actually have one.”

Myfanwy’s heart jumped to her throat, and she grabbed both of Eliza’s hands with her own. “Did someone say that to you?” 

Eliza jerked back, like she’d managed to startle them. “I- it’s no big deal.”

“It is.” Myfanwy squeezed them tight. “They shouldn’t talk about you like you’re not a person. That’s awful!”

“Well then what’s the truth?” Eliza leaned in, bringing them almost nose to nose, and the beetle crawled a few inches up their shirt. It was even more beautiful up close, with hints of blue in the shell, like the feathers of her own daemon. Maybe. 

Myfanwy bit her lip. On her shoulder, Sensem was fidgeting, making her earring jingle like a wind chime. “I’m thinking.”

Eliza rolled up onto her toes to press a quick kiss to Myfanwy’s cheek, then let her go. “Well you let me know when you’ve figured it out.”

They finished the research in silence. 

*** 

They both left it alone, more or less. Gestalt continued to inch closer to her, keeping an eye on Sensem, and she continued to pay attention, waiting for the moment when she would understand. 

Ingrid’s tabby daemon that spent his days curled in her lap, Conrad’s finch, Linda’s long gone white swan. If she touched them, she knew, she would feel everything, all of them, but it would hurt. Violate the taboo. They’d put Sensem in a tiny cage when they captured her, handled him with bare hands without a thought to what it would do to her. Even if there was only a one in four chance that the same would happen to Gestalt, she’d never risk it. And touching Gestalt only confirmed what she already knew: one soul, four human bodies, one daemon body. 

Myfanwy sighed and leaned farther over the railing of the bridge, looking down at the water. 

“Watch it.” 

She looked up to see Teddy and Alex approaching, twin smiles on their differently styled faces, daemons hidden away in pockets as usual. 

She turned around to face them. “Think I’ll fall?” 

“Maybe.” Alex kept the smile Teddy dropped. “And no starling’s going to catch you, no offense.” 

Myfanwy smiled back. “What, and a mouse would?” 

“No,” Alex said, their hand going to their jacket pocket. 

“But I wouldn’t fall,” said Teddy, and a small lizard crawled from the inside of their jacket to the sunny patch on their shoulder. 

“Good point.” 

They came to rest on either side of her, like they always did. Boxing her in, or just getting the best angle, making sure she couldn’t hide. Possibly teasing. The wind blew, and Sensem took off, catching it and riding the wave over the water, dipping and diving and rising up again. Other people, normal people, who had bird daemons couldn’t do this. Their daemons had to stay close to them, or they would be wracked by debilitating pain, struck down. EVAs were different. 

Myfanwy blinked, feeling like she’d had the wind knocked out of her. “Oh.” 

“What?” Teddy asked, and Sensem landed on the railing behind them, speckles shining in the light. Myfanwy turned sharply towards Teddy, chest to chest, and their breath caught. 

“The bird.”

Behind her, Alex took in a sharp breath, but Teddy only cocked their head. “What?”

Myfanwy smacked her hand on the railing, energized. “It’s the bird, that black bird I see in your window, around the Cheque, too. Everywhere! As long as it’s close to one of you, you’re fine. It must just fly all over the city following one of you at a time-”

Teddy leaned in fast, catching her face in both hands and kissing her before she could even process what was happening. By the time they pulled away, Alex was at her back, arms wrapped around her waist, mouth at her ear. “You smart shining woman.”

She reached up to touch Teddy’s face, heedless of the lizard she now knew wasn’t anything, just a pet, their eyes drilling down into hers, and felt the connection, the similarity, the freedom in both of them. Her and them. Them and the others. 

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it.” 

Teddy smirked. “Most people don’t.” 

“We’re not most people.” She stroked her fingers along the lines of their face. “What’s their name?” Her voice came out breathy and childish, but she was desperate for everything, more information, more touch, more of all of Gestalt. 

Alex laughed. “Totem.” 

“I just-” She shook her head. “Almost all EVAs have bird daemons.”

“I know.” Teddy took her hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. “But once people decide that we’re different, not just from normal people, but from everyone else, they don’t question it.” 

Myfanwy shook her head. “I should have.” 

“You did,” Gestalt said, and kissed her again, open mouthed and wanting. 

Behind them, the black bird that flew by her windows and tapped on her glass and watched out for her landed on the railing beside Sensem. A crow, she noticed now, feeling the push pull energy flow from her to Gestalt and back again. Smart and crafty. Sneaky and beautiful. One of the smartest birds, capable of adapting to its environment and even using tools. She let her eyes slip shut, kissing them back. Of course.

**Author's Note:**

> A much shorter version of this fic:   
Gestalt: so hey what do you think-  
Myfanwy: NONE of these pigs are my parents 
> 
> the title:   
“Some have stood under a sky filled with ‘whispering stars’ or in a quiet snowfall that made a night seem ‘wordless.’ Others have watched a growing pine tree ‘becoming the grandfather of animal shaped clouds’ or supposed that because of its sleek, deep darkness, ‘a crow doesn’t need a shadow.’” - Lorraine Ferra, “A Crow Doesn’t Need a Shadow”
> 
> Related, it’s still unclear to me despite the weird amount of research I ended up doing for this if the beetles could be trained? like I don’t know and please just come with me on this because it really doesn’t matter, maybe if a person can have four bodied then a beetle can be a trained pet! I can’t look at bug articles anymore 
> 
> anyway I’m at paradiamond.tumblr.com as always, losing my whole grip


End file.
